Locked in: Dalston bike man Dan tells how he survived the disease sweeping the world

Dalston businessman DANIEL WESTON followed safe procedure yet started to feel ill. One night he realised he had caughtwhat he most feared: coronavirus

I CO-PARENT my daughter Eliza, who is 14. Normally, she spends half of her time at my house and half with her mum. At the start of the crisis she and I agreed that if one of us caught Covid-19 Eliza, shown at top with me, would stay with whoever she was with. What happened next was a shock…

Friday: I lost all sense of taste and smell. Completely.

Saturday: I decided one of the bike shop’s older mechanics should be kept away from the public, so though he’s fit and healthy, he stayed at home.

Monday: life carried on as normal except we’d stopped Eliza using public transport, which meant more kilometres to and from school by tandem. Me: no cough but no smell, no taste and some congestion. Highgate Hill was knackering — but that was my cold, wasn’t it?

Public transport was out so that meant travel to and from school by tandem

Wednesday: feeling more tired than usual so took Eliza to school on the electric tandem. Our youngest mechanic turned up with a cough: I sent her home on furlough.

Me, I was tired — 5am starts were not what my cold needed. I’d already moved into the spare room because the education courses run by Katya, my wife, had been migrated from Moscow to our bedroom and the virtual world of Zoom.

Thursday: Eliza’s last day at school for perhaps five months. I’m too tired to collect her so I’m taking things easy. A friend, an NHS professor, mentions he has been self-isolating. I sleep for 12 hours.

Marvellous backup… and I had a friend, a professor, working in it

Friday: unwelcome early shift. But I’m tired and the coldness of my hands is definitely not normal. The thermometer registers 37.8C. Paracetamol and bed for me. Katya and I use separate bathrooms.

Saturday: I awake18 hours late, feverish, tired, not hungry and not thirsty. Sleep despite blocked sinuses making it hard to breathe through the nose. I take decongestants and more paracetamol.

Sunday: sleep.

Monday: I climb the stairs to my office. Sitting up is difficult: my breathing is odd, my chest tight, my head light, as if I am at the top of a mountain. I read a story online about people dying of C19. They were suffocating. My breathing is like that, isn’t it?

Teatime? Not for a sick man whose wife is busy with a Zoom session

I’m scared. I tell Katya I may need to go to hospital and hint for a cup of tea. She’s busy Zooming.

Lying down I realise that though I can’t breathe normally I can get enough air. IWhatsappthe Prof, who immediately asks what my oxygen saturation is.Luckily, my phone can measure it: 94%.

Good, he says. No point calling for an ambulance because at 94% they’ll leave you at home. But I suspect I have C19. Then someone sends an article saying loss of smell and taste has been reported as an indicator of Covid 19. On the balance of probabilities I have C19.

Tuesday: Some good news: bike shops are exempt from closure and my temperature is back to normal. But I do not feel normal. I expect the covid cough to appear at any moment. If I move quickly or read about the Daily Mailmy breathing gets odd.

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